The first problem is Neo Gotham's law enforcement. The biggest problem with them is that we are given almost no real information or exposure to them. This is basically a result of catering to the intended audience gone very badly. Batman Beyond was intended for children and in our society we need to teach kids to trust the police, that they keep everyone safe. Unfortunately the only setting in which Batman is necessary is a setting in which the police are unable or unwilling to do their jobs effectively. Essentially for Batman to exist the police have either be incompetent or corrupt. The animated series represented this with finesse by making it a combination of corrupt officers and such a large volume of crime that the cops were overwhelmed thus needing the Batman. Batman Beyond didn't handle it as well, their solution to the "how can we need a Batman and represent the police with dignity" problem was to represent the police as little as possible. In the first episode when Bruce tells Terry to take the proof about Powers' nerve gas to Commissioner Gordon he expresses his disbelief that the cops can actually help. Assuming Terry is correct and not just biased as a former juvi kid that means that the cops are ineffectively on the whole, either due to incompetence, understaffing or more likely because they're under Derek Powers' thumb. Problem is the few times we see the cops in action they are largely more effective than Batman himself. By dropping in to foil an arms deal Batman blows a sting operation that seems well thought out and has more than enough personnel attached. When they turn on Batman it's no more than a day or two before he's at their mercy (mostly due to Barbara's training and inside knowledge but still). In fact the only time it seems as though Batman is more effective than the police is during his one on one with Curare and with Gordon at the helm they were only a couple steps behind him. Now as commissioner does Barbara Gordon seem like the type to tolerate corruption in her department? I'd say absolutely not. So if the police are effective, well staffed, organized, and by all accounts skilled why are they never where they are needed? The ill defined police department brings us to another of Batman Beyond's vagaries, the city itself.

The Gotham City of "Batman the Animated Series" had a very distinctive presence to it. It was nearly a character unto itself. The different districts had different atmospheres to them and while I will admit that I never watched "The New Batman and Robin Adventures" and so don't know how the city was redesigned Gotham was a hugely important part of the first iteration of the animated series. It almost acted as a reflection of the Batman that protected it. In contrast Neo Gotham has very little definition or personality. It could literally be any futuristic scifi city in any story. It is mostly viewed from the high rises and skyscrapers leaving largely to the imagination what the ground level looks like. Even when we see the city from street level it very rarely gives us any significant information on good neighborhoods or bad, what is typical and so forth, we just see street corners and alleyways, nothing more. Given the futuristic setting we can't even be sure what a good household looks like. Take Max, many people thing she is poor because her home looks like a cement bunker but for all we know that is a typical working class home. We're not even told if Hamilton Hill High is a good school or effectively Gotham's delinquents school. (I have some circumstantial evidence that suggests it's a relatively rich private school but we're given no hard proof one way or the other). The only real exposure we get to Gotham as a city is Bruce and Terry's excursion to the historical district but as we are shown the remains of Crime Alley it's less a view of Gotham and more a "Hey look how decrepit the bits of Gotham from the animates series are thirty years on." Bruce's Gotham acted as an ally to him, he knew ever inch, the passages, the shadows, how to get around. Terry seems to need Bruce in is ear to act as google maps for almost everything he does. Which incidentally brings me to I think Batman Beyond's worst failing, it's use of technology, or more specifically Batman's use of technology in the form of his super suit.

When Terry first examines the suit he remarks about how it is still cutting edge fifteen years after it's creation his exact words are "synaptic controls, neuro muscular amplification, flight capability... ...I bet it amplifies your strength 10:1" While I'm not a scientist to me this essentially means "faster, better reaction times, flight and increased strength". That is perfectly reasonable. Given that this is a Batman for the new age and that new age has a significant amount of advanced technology it would make sense that Batman would have to have a means of combating that technology. The original Batman fought with his skills as a martial artist and his intellect. The suit was basically meant to power him up so that Terry could fight with his skills as a martial artist and his intellect while being able to combat things like synthoids and other advanced weaponry. That is all fine and perfectly understandable. Unfortunately the suit became a crutch that the writers and animators relied on. For a suit that ripped to pieces after a ten story dive during Terry's first encounter with Spellbinder and was again severely damaged when Mad Stan detonated a grenade near it the suit seems by the middle of the second season almost indestructible. Terry falls several stories, busts through levels made of concrete and is somehow just mildly dazed. He takes a massive number of laser blasts with what seems to be only a mild amount of discomfort. It gets to the point where the writers seem to forget that Terry himself isn't invulnerable. In "Terry's Friend Dates a Robot" Cynthia knocks Terry off the school roof, he falls about four stories, does a back flip and walks away without a scratch. Even worse they seem to forget that everyone in the Beyond universe isn't immortal as Stalker drops Nelson off a three story parking garage, he lands on his car and is not in any way injured. This is obviously a problem as a hero that can't be easily hurt has no stakes and is thus not very interesting. Which brings us to a related failing of the show, I do hate to say this but it is "Terry as Batman".

There's a rather heavy amount of debate about whether Terry could even be the Batman with the Beyond suit and to be completely honest I think the answer is that he couldn't. Never mind that the flight capabilities of the suit are important to being able to navigate Neo Gotham. In his fights he doesn't often show more than an average amount of skill and almost never deduces a more effective way of dealing with his target, 90% of the time just keeps punching till they go down. Without the suit I doubt he'd be able to do that at all. Yes I am aware that there are a couple examples that contradict that statement but they aren't very numerous. That aside Terry does very little of the work that makes Batman truly Batman. As far as hero style and method go he's actually a lot closer to Superman than he is to Batman. He flies around above the clouds and is never really seen by the common man, he deals with the big problems. Not the everyday muggings and holdups. One of Batman's defining attributes is that he's a great detective. He uses forensics, logic etc etc, to tie the method and circumstance of a crime back to its perpetrator and then goes in for the kill. Terry just flies around till he hears crime going down and then blindly goes in for the kill. Bruce used fear and terror amongst his other skills, some criminals didn't risk committing crimes because they feared "THE BATMAN!" would appear from the shadows. He was like a ghost, a vengeful demon that would punish wrongdoers and could be lurking anywhere. Terry is as far as we are aware viewed basically as slightly more badass auxiliary law enforcement. Someone to watch out for but I never got the impression that any criminal was afraid of him while with Bruce just the sight of his Batman sent many criminals running in terror. Don't get me wrong, I like Terry as a character but the show didn't do enough to develop him as a unique Batman or to show off his skills beyond that of beating people up. His allies did almost all of the work for him. First it was Bruce and then when they started cutting his screen time cause they couldn't find a way to make him more kid friendly Max took over that role. Yes I am aware that Batman had a large support system in the rest of the Bat family, but they were built by him after the fact. Any task that he had Oracle or Robin or Alfred do for him he was perfectly capable of doing himself (aside from making Alfred's English biscuits apparently). Terry on the other hand can't even do basic triangulation. When there's a bomb in Gotham and he knows the transmitter to reset its timer has a specific radius and he knows three places where the transmitter was used Max has to explain the math of using that information to find the area the bomb must be in. Similarly he doesn't even know what a spectrographic analysis is and instead asks the computer to "do the thing were you figure out what something's made of". For someone who can recognize the machinery the Batsuit is made of from a glance and effect repairs to it that seems kind of odd. Now all of that is sort of understandable in the first season when Terry is a very new Batman but the following seasons did nothing to address or rectify it. You would think Bruce would insist Terry learn some of this stuff considering Bruce's age, he's not going to be around forever.